Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump intensified his criticism of Hillary Clinton after she said he had a "penchant for sexism," warning his Democratic rival against using the "woman card" and drawing his full attention.

In a familiar pattern for Trump, he responded to fire – this time over a vulgarity he used in describing Clinton's 2008 primary loss – with fire.

Later he tweeted, "Hillary, when you complain about 'a penchant for sexism,' who are you referring to. I have great respect for women. BE CAREFUL!"

The real estate tycoon, who is the front-runner for the 2016 Republican nomination, drew widespread criticism this week after using Yiddish slang for a man's genitals to describe Barack Obama's victory over Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential race, saying: "She got schlonged."

While Clinton's campaign would not comment on Thursday on Trump's warning, she addressed his rhetoric in an interview with the Des Moines Register in Iowa, where she was campaigning for the state's early presidential contest.

"I really deplore the tone of his campaign, the inflammatory rhetoric that he is using to divide people, and his going after groups of people with hateful, incendiary rhetoric," she said on Tuesday, the day after Trump's slang remark.

"It's not the first time he's demonstrated a penchant for sexism," she said.

Clinton said she does not respond to the candidate personally "because he thrives on that kind of exchange."

Trump has been criticized for calling women fat pigs, dogs and slobs, and in August his comments about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly were widely interpreted as referring to her menstrual cycle. He denied that was his intention.